Colorado’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Board concluded on Tuesday that members of the bench may go by a professional name, rather than their legal name, so long as their intent is not to deceive.

The board, which consists of judges, attorneys and a nonlawyer, addressed a question that no other ethics guidance in the country had directly examined.

An unidentified magistrate submitted an inquiry to the board, describing how she practiced law in Colorado for 15 years using her maiden name, even though she married and changed her legal name almost a decade ago.

“Nevertheless, she continued to appear in court, try cases, author pleadings and otherwise participate in the legal community using her maiden name, the name by which she was professionally known,” the panel’s Sept. 1 opinion described.

The newly appointed magistrate asked whether she could continue to use her nonlegal name on the bench.

The advisory panel concluded that she could, so long as she did not intend to “deceive or mislead litigants, the judiciary or the public or to achieve some other improper purpose.”

“This Board has not previously addressed this question. Nor does it appear that any other jurisdiction has addressed the question in precisely this context,” the panel wrote.

Relying on other states’ decisions involving the appearance of judicial candidates’ names on ballots, the advisory board concluded that it was appropriate for the magistrate to continue to use her “primary professional identity” on the bench.

The opinion cautioned that the code of judicial conduct could prohibit certain uses of a nonlegal name.

“For example, a judge who, upon appointment, decides to change their name to obscure prior criminal or disciplinary history from the public would likely be acting contrary to the requirements of the Code,” the board wrote. “In contrast, the requesting judge here will, if anything, be more easily identified given that her maiden name is the one by which she is already known professionally. She intends to use a form of her name — her maiden name — and by doing so will commit no fraud or misconduct.”